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Op-Ed: Rape Culture Awareness And Bill Cosby Allegations Raise Uncomfortable Questions

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The allegations against Bill Cosby have been circulating for far too long to not be examined more closely.

On November 17, 2014, Whoopi Goldberg expressed doubts about the allegations made by Barbara Bowman, the woman who accused Bill Cosby of raping her when she was seventeen. She is the fifth of now seventeen women to publicly accuse the 77-year-old of sexual assault.

“Perhaps the police might have believed it. Or the hospital. Don’t you do a kit when you say someone has raped you?” Goldberg asked.

This is not about gender, it’s about power. Men who are raped experience the same shame and carry the same burdens. Perhaps, in some cases, even more, given the society’s gender expectations that have been shattered by the violation, along with the personal, physical assault.

Taking one’s rapist to task is not simply a matter of telling the truth in the hopes one’s accusations will be taken seriously (validated only by the findings of a rape kit and a corroborating statement to law enforcement). Asserting one’s power in this context, requires a deep, inner strength to face the consequences of the rape long after the incident itself.

In an open letter to Whoopi Goldberg on phillymag.com, Lis Spikol takes her to task on her reluctance to believe Bowman for not reporting Cosby at the time of the assault.

“Why don’t we tell, Whoopi? Because our skin burns with shame. I thought my body would never get clean, not only from him but from my own stupidity and weakness. The minute after it ended I felt like I was being torn into pieces, like I was on fire, and I just wanted to shower. I felt crazy, confused, angry, beaten, lost, like I had a zipper running from throat to naval. I felt more alone than I’ve ever felt before or since. I felt like the severed pieces of my body were floating in darkness. I felt savaged. I felt terrified.”

Former supermodel Janice Dickinson has also been added to the growing list of women stepping out publicly to accuse comedian of sexual assault. In a graphically detailed interview with Entertainment Tonight, she relayed the incident she says happened in 1982.

“The last thing I remember was Bill Cosby in a patchwork robe, dropping his robe and getting on top of me. And I remember a lot of pain. The next morning I remember waking up with my pajamas off and there was semen in between my legs,” said Ms. Dickinson. 

As to why she waited until now to say anything, Ms. Dickinson expressed an all too familiar response. “I was afraid of the consequences. I was afraid of being labelled a whore or a slut and trying to sleep my way to the top of a career that never took place,” she said, “I want to talk about this now and I want to really support the other women who have gone through this.”

Cecile Lipworth, Managing Director at V-Day empathized with Ms. Spikol. “Over the years that I’ve worked with so many women who have been raped/sexually assaulted, many have said almost exactly the same thing,” she told me. “The last line of this letter is the most powerful and is exactly the cost of violence against women that I know – so many women I have met merely survive the rest of their lives…they ‘haven’t completed any of my life’s coursework since that night.’”

In certain cultures, one’s value as a human being is diminished by the act that’s been leveled against the victim. It’s why some victims are murdered under the disgusting guise of “honor killing” because they surely must have provoked the attack by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Forever tarnished whores violating the sanctity and purity of entitled male expectation.

Families are shamed and shunned as well. Making a claim against a rapist or attacker subjects the victim to ridicule, humiliation and punishment – even from, if not especially by, the very police to whom the crime is being reported to the hospital administering an invasive, painful inspection with the contents of the rape kit, assuming there is one.

Patriarchic religions demand that women cover themselves from head to toe because the onus rests upon the women to deter the violent sexual behavior of men, rather than demand control from the men for whom women exist as mere objects.

The perils of ignoring rape allegations coupled with high profile accusations and exonerations complicate our response (or lack thereof) to sexual assault. 

On November 19, 2014, a Rolling Stone magazine article, “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA,” by Sabrina Rubin Erdely went viral. The jaw-dropping account of Jackie – a freshman at the University of Virginia – detailed her harrowing ordeal after she was brutally assaulted by seven men at a frat party. A gruesome tale that epitomizes the essence of rape culture. A female friend, in the immediate aftermath, questioned the wisdom of going to hospital given the cost to Jackie’s reputation. The ostracism that would inevitably follow the “girl who cried ‘rape’.” Jackie didn’t go to the hospital that night.  

On November 22, 2014, in a mea culpa response to the Rolling Stone article, University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan suspended all fraternity activity until January, admitting the organization’s failure to respond appropriately.

“The wrongs described in Rolling Stone are appalling and have caused all of us to reexamine our responsibility to this community. Rape is an abhorrent crime that has no place in the world, let alone on the campuses and grounds of our nation’s colleges and universities,” wrote Ms. Sullivan in an officially released statement. “We know, and have felt very powerfully this week, that we are better than we have been described, and that we have a responsibility to live our tradition of honor every day, and as importantly every night.” 

Jackie’s ordeal shines a light on the power imbalance. To the extent that the rapists are students from the University of Virginia, her account is tantamount to betrayal of the institution. Sullying their reputation, dragging them down with her. Where appearances are valued above ethics and loyalty toward the brand, trumps the transgression of the individual. There’s a reason some students call the institution “UVrApe.”

Ms. Sullivan may have suspended fraternity activities in belated embarrassment in the wake of Rolling Stone’s exposé, but in the culture of America’s alumni system, there’s only one person who will “never eat lunch in this town again,” and none of them are Jackie’s rapists.

Bill Cosby is a globally recognized and respected celebrity. And at the time of these assaults, much loved. The allegations are beginning to take their toll, however, as NBC and Netflix have both canceled Cosby projects, and TV Land has pulled Cosby Show reruns.

In an interview in Australia on Friday, Cosby finally responded to the allegations, stating: “”I know people are tired of me not saying anything, but a guy doesn’t have to answer to innuendos. People should fact check. People shouldn’t have to go through that and shouldn’t answer to innuendos.” 

In a stunning display of cluelessness and contextual tone deafness, CNN anchor Don Lemon told one of the alleged victims, Joan Tarshis, who alleges Cosby raped her when she was 19, that “there are ways not to perform oral sex if you didn’t want to do it”. His remedy for warding off the assault – use her teeth. As is the pattern, Ms. Tarshis didn’t report the rape because she felt that no one would believe a teenager’s word against “Mr. America.”

Taking on Cosby would be difficult for anyone, let alone a young girl, who would not only be faced with the comparably endless resources at his disposal to discredit her, but her own self-doubt, fear compounding the injuries to both her body and psyche. And while reporting a rape will almost guarantee a challenge to the victim’s integrity, according to Ms. Rubin Erdely, studies indicate that false rape reports account for, at most, eight percent of reports. There’s not much of an upside to pretending to be raped.

In racially charged America, Bill Cosby’s behavior is especially disappointing. Not to mention how ironic his admonishments to young black men, to buck up and pull up their baggy pants, seem now.

Perhaps it is why Whoopi Goldberg is desperate to give Bill Cosby the benefit of any doubt. And while Goldberg has certainly experienced life as a black woman, her extraordinary success affords her a unique prism. And a position of privilege that perhaps informs her opinions, along with a platform from which to express them.

The election of America’s first black President has unleashed some of the worst racism we’ve seen in America in decades. With the Ku Klux Klan alive and well and inciting hate in Ferguson, it’s natural to want to defend a role model and beloved figure like Bill Cosby, and question the motives and doubts of anyone wanting to bring him down. But challenging the words of a victim of sexual assault, no matter how long after the incident, is part of another pattern, and reason why women feel conflicted about coming forward to begin with.

Whether we like it or not, the Bill Cosby saga is complicated by gender, race, privilege and celebrity. As was the violent gang rape at West Virginia University. Former President Bill Clinton faced sexual assault accusations, and there are some opining that there’s a double standard at play.

But at its heart, like rape itself, this is a story about power.

There’s no escaping that if a young Barbara Bowman was raped by Bill Cosby, the questioning of her motives, and reactions like those of Whoopi Goldberg do a disservice to women everywhere. Attitudes that underscore the very reason for which she’s being attacked and doubted today. That taking on one’s attacker is not only difficult, (and not only in extreme circumstances like Jackie’s) but sets one on a path that will lay bare one’s deepest fears, perpetuate one’s self-doubt and re-victimize one over and over again. 

No matter how soon or far after the event itself, reporting it is a continuation of the assault. And that’s a best case scenario.

Long after the physical pain has subsided and wounds have healed. If indeed, they ever do. 

 

Image: Clinton Fein

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News

Mark Robinson Scandal Could Bring Trump Down in ‘Reverse Coattails’ Effect: Expert

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September 19, 2024

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Thursday’s bombshell revelations about North Carolina Republican Mark Robinson could not only doom his gubernatorial candidacy, but Donald Trump’s campaign as well, according to one of the most respected political experts.

According to CNN, Robinson, the current Lt. Governor who is the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee, “made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago, in which he referred to himself as a ‘black NAZI!’ and expressed support for reinstating slavery.”

CNN’s KFile also reveals that Robinson, a far-right Christian nationalist who has targeted the LGBTQ community, “said he enjoyed watching transgender pornography, a review of archived messages found in which he also referred to himself as a ‘perv.'”

On the website Nude Africa, “Robinson discussed his affinity for transgender pornography.”

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“I like watching tranny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!” Robinson wrote, according to CNN. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!”

The article also notes that “CNN is reporting only a small portion of Robinson’s comments on the website given their graphic nature.”

Professor of politics Larry Sabato, the highly-respected political scientist and political analyst and founder and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and Sabato’s Crystal Ball says his team has held an “emergency session” to review the report and is moving its prediction for governor of North Carolina from “Lean Democratic” to “Likely Democratic”:

“The Crystal Ball team has just met in emergency session, and in the fastest rating change in our history, we are moving NC GOVERNOR from Lean D to LIKELY D.”

READ MORE: Donald Trump Just Made One of His Most Racist Attacks Yet – and the Media Is Ignoring It

Sabato adds, “Our Crystal Ball rating for NC Governor has been Lean D. Mark Robinson (R) was going to lose even before this new story. The question is whether Robinson brings down the top of the ticket (Donald Trump) with him. Those 16 electoral votes could be the whole election.”

Asked on social media, “What kind of drag can the Gov race have on the Presidential race in NC?” Sabato replied: “Reverse coattails. It happens from time to time. Can dampen a party’s turnout.”

Trump also vociferously and enthusiastically endorsed Robinson. The Harris campaign was quick to post video of that endorsement after the scandal broke.

Political analysts have been saying North Carolina is a critical state given the current Electoral map.

“There are really only three states that will decide the presidential election: Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia,” Politico reported Thursday morning. “If Vice President Kamala Harris can’t carry Pennsylvania, her only hope is on a Southern strategy. Harris must win either Georgia or North Carolina. She has no other path to the White House.”

And if Trump “wins the East Coast trio of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, he will go back to the White House,” Politico added.

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Yes, Republicans Are Lying — and They’re Not Going to Stop: ‘Enjoy It’

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OPINION

Donald Trump Just Made One of His Most Racist Attacks Yet – and the Media Is Ignoring It

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9 hours ago

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September 19, 2024

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For the most part, the mainstream media has largely (though not entirely) stopped holding Donald Trump accountable by reporting just how much more extreme he is becoming, just how much more racist and divisive he has grown.

At his Wednesday rally in Long Island – the largely purple neighbor to New York City and one that has many right-wing staunchly conservative areas – the former president continued to push his attacks on immigrants. And not just undocumented immigrants, but all immigrants – or at least, non-European immigrants.

Political strategists have been questioning why Trump is campaigning in states he is all but guaranteed to lose (New York, California) and states he is all but guaranteed to win (Florida), but here’s just a small portion of what the ex-president told Long Islanders just 48 days before Election Day (full video.)

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“For every New Yorker being terrorized by this wave of migrant crime, and I’ve been talking about migrant crime for five years. I said, if you let them in, it’s going to be hell. They are vicious, violent criminals that are being led into our country, their people that their countries, who are very smart, they don’t want them. That’s why, all over the world, a lot of people coming from jails, out of the Congo in Africa.”

“‘Where do you come from?’ ‘The Congo,'” Trump said, mimicking a pretend conversation.

“‘Where in the Congo?’ ‘We come from jail.’ ‘What did you do?’ ‘We will not tell you’.”

“They’re coming from the Congo. They’re coming from Africa. They’re coming from the Middle East. They’re coming from all over the world, Asia, lot of it coming from Asia, and what’s happening to our country is we’re just destroying the fabric of life in our country, and we’re not going to take it any longer. And you got to get rid of these people. Give me a shot. You will have a safe New York within three months. Three months.”

Trump continued:

“For every New Yorker being terrorized by this wave of migrant crime, November 5 will be your Liberation Day. It’s going to be liberation because you are living like hell. You’re living a life like hell.”

(There is no “wave of migrant crime,” crime is largely way down.)

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After talking about “MS-13,” Trump added:

“They’re coming in by the millions. Not by the hundreds. They’re coming in by the millions. Think of it, probably 21 million people. That’s probably a low number. We can do all of this and more, but patriotic New Yorkers must get your asses out to vote,” Trump urged, before launching into another pretend conversation.

“‘Harry, get up. Harry, Harry, get your fat ass out of the couch. You’re going to vote for Trump today. Harry, get up. Harry, come on. Let’s go. Let’s go, Harry.'”

Watch a portion of those remarks below or at this link.

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OPINION

Yes, Republicans Are Lying — and They’re Not Going to Stop: ‘Enjoy It’

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10 hours ago

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September 19, 2024

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This week, a Christian podcaster offered up what might be seen as a permission slip – or a “get out of jail free card” – for Republicans who have been lying to the American people: “enjoy it.”

“It’s okay to use deception in service of defeating the left. It’s not sinning in order to do good. It’s being righteously shrewd in order to do good. It’s also okay to enjoy it. Lighten up.”


Those are the words of Josh Daws, whose bio at Founders Ministries says he is “dedicated to helping Christians navigate the complex and rapidly changing cultural landscape through his biblically-based cultural analysis.”

Daws “strives to provide insightful and thought-provoking commentary on current events and cultural trends on his podcast and Twitter. He hopes to be a valuable resource for those looking to engage with culture in a meaningful and informed way.”

The tweet has been viewed well over a half-million times in just 48 hours, and it seems to sum up where the right and the far-right are at this moment in time – ethics be damned, the ends justify the means.

When a reporter for Politico on Wednesday confronted Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, the U.S. Senator for Ohio who has been spreading racist and dangerous lies about his own constituents – immigrants from Haiti legally living and working in the city of Springfield – falsely claiming they are stealing pets and eating them, he dug in his heels.

Donald Trump during the debate had lied, saying infamously off the Haitian immigrants, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating, the pets of the people that live there.”

The reporter reminded Vance that the Haitian immigrants, whom he has been calling “illegal migrants,” are in the United States under a 1990 law signed by President George H.W. Bush, “so they are here legally.”

The freshman junior senator made clear he did not care.

“Well, if Kamala Harris waves the wand illegally and says these people are now here legally, I’m still going to call them an illegal alien. An illegal action from Kamala Harris does not make an alien legal. That is not how this works,” declared the defiant Vance, who holds a law degree from Yale and knows that they are, in fact, here legally and the Biden Administration’s decision to grant them protection means they are not, as he claimed, “illegal.”

In short, Senator Vance was lying, and lying to a crowd, however small, who ate it up, cheering, applauding, and at times nodding in agreement.

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“This is just shocking,” declared former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, now a professor of political science. “Mr. Vance is blatantly calling a legal action illegal. I’ve studied my whole life how democracies break down. This is how it happens folks. I hope he really doesn’t believe this. Politicians say a lot of crazy things during elections. I fear he might.”

Senator Vance has been lying since Monday of last week, when he first promoted the racist “pet-eating” lie.

“Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” Vance asked on social media, referring of course to Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for President, who has never been the “border czar.”

Vance, or his staff, according to a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday, knew he was lying, or at least knew after his remarks were posted. They remain up to this day, never corrected or removed.

Over the weekend, Senator Vance, now infamously, told CNN, effectively, that he is willing to lie to promote his agenda.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Vance told host Dana Bash.

“You just said that you’re ‘creating’ a story,” Bash responded, as The New Republic reported. “You just said that this is a story that you created.”

“Yes!” Vance replied, before twisting his own words in a nonsensical defense.

“We are creat—we are creating … Dana,” Vance said. “It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we’re ‘creating a story’ meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.”

The New Republic’s Greg Sergeant added, “JD Vance is also claiming that because of Haitians, communicable diseases in Springfield have ‘skyrocketed.’ I talked to the health commissioner in Clark County, where Springfield is located. Vance’s claim is nonsense.”

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Republicans outright lying have making headlines of late.

“The Real Reason Trump and Vance Are Spreading Lies About Haitians” (The Atlantic)

“How J.D. Vance Became Trump’s Pet Liar” (New York Magazine‘s Intelligencer)

“How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True” (Wall Street Journal)

“One of the Republican Convention’s Weirdest Lies” (New York Times)

“The Grand Old Party of Liars” (The Nation)

There is, 0f course, Donald Trump, who lies so often the media stopped bothering to keep up. Questions have been flowing about his lies of late that are so off-the-wall and so provably-false, his grasp of reality is being called into question.

Wednesday night, in a rare on-camera, in-studio Fox News interview, Trump, (still talking about last week’s debate,) falsely claimed the ABC News moderators corrected him, “I think nine times, or eleven times.”

The right-wing New York Post reported Trump was fact-checked five times, not nine, not eleven.

CNN reported Trump made 33 false statements during the debate, Harris just one.

But it was Trump’s next remark, also false, that has many calling into question not just his moral character, but his mental health.

“And the audience was, they went crazy.”

There was no audience at that debate.

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols remarked: “How is it that Trump hallucinated an audience being present during the debate and we’ve just moved on as if this isn’t a sign of a serious mental problem? Biden – wisely – agreed to step aside for far less than that.”

On Wednesday, journalist and SiriusXM host Michelangelo Signorile wrote at Substack, “Why MAGA views blatant lying as a righteous and important act.”

Signorile highlighted this recent lie by Donald Trump: “Think of it. Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child. And many of these childs 15 years later say, ‘What the hell happened? Who did this to me?'”

Signorile noted Trump’s claims were “so deranged and kooky—as if there are hospitals in schools or kids are being transferred to hospitals in the middle of the day from their classrooms—that many of us thought it was a clear example of Trump’s continued cognitive decline. He did, after all, say ‘many of these childs’ instead of ‘children,’ and that was more evidence of his faltering mental acuity.”

But.

“But Trump repeated the claim again days later at a rally, continuing to push something that was deemed false even by his staunchest supporters,” Signorile continued. “And that is a real tell.”

He explains, “the goal of the lying by Trump and his running mate JD Vance,” is “to hijack discussion and redirect it to issues they want to talk about, even if it means they are exposed as having told a lie.”

Signorile says, “the MAGA masses are perfectly fine with that strategy. They don’t care about the lies being exposed because the lies are a means to an end.”

As for Daws’ s defense of using “deception in service of defeating the left,” attorney Andrew L. Seidel writes, “I often speak about Christian Nationalism as a permission structure. For instance, CN gave the insurrectionists the moral and mental license they needed for the treasonous assault on our democracy on January 6th. Here is that permission structure laid out explicitly.”

SiriusXM host John Fugelsang remarked, “I have never read a purer distillation of MAGA Christianity than ‘thou shalt bear false witness.'”

Others have remarked simply, “Romans 3:8.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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